


The Asset and the Captain

by Heart_Of_Steel_And_Fandoms



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), captain america movies
Genre: Bisexual Steve Rogers, Blood, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes doesn't come into it until later, Bucky needs a hug, Canon-typical levels of violence (if not more), Death, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Hyper-Vigilance, Identity Problems, M/M, Major-warnings, Mostly a character study of Steve Rogers, Murder, Nightmares, PTSD, Steve Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers-centric, Steve hates Hydra, Steve is a SHIELD agent with a false name, Steve trains Natasha, THE WHOLE DEAL, Tony Needs a Hug, Torture, Trauma, loss of self, steve is technologically savvy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-23 02:19:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4859387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heart_Of_Steel_And_Fandoms/pseuds/Heart_Of_Steel_And_Fandoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve wakes up. He isn't in the future, he isn't 70 years out of date, and he certainly isn't a hero. He was never supposed to make it to twenty- let alone ninety.</p>
<p>Or; an AU where James Buchannan Barnes isn't the only American soldier the Russians find after the war, and Steve Rogers spends fifty years atoning for his sins before he escapes, joins SHIELD, and pretends not to be Captain America for as long as he can. Then aliens invade New York, and, really, for an organisation that literally runs on secrets Steve's just surprised they haven't figured out his yet. The Hydra Thing comes after. Steve's just trying to help people, he doesn't see why the universe keeps throwing him so many curveballs.</p>
<p>(AN- I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, fair warning. Also- READ THE TAGS, DARK STUFF AHEAD)</p>
<p>(AN- In light of a few new ideas I had concerning the plot, and the canon we get from Civil War, I've changed some aspects of the story; but the basic concept remains the same.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Asset and the Captain

**Author's Note:**

> For the moment this will just be one chapter (Steve going into the ice) because I want to write it all before starting to update the chapters. Unfortunately, this has been sitting in my drafts for a month so _thank you_ AO3, I have to post it. Sigh. Tell me what you think, and the story will be continued soon!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve dies.
> 
> "In the end, Steve dies from the ice and the cold, and it's simultaneously agony and relief because he's been cold inside so long it feels like coming home."

Hitting the water doesn’t kill him. It would be nice if it did, if he blacked out when the impact hit, if he wasn't awake when the cold stole the breath from his lungs. But, no, Steven Grant Rogers is fully conscious when he goes into the ice. It's a jarring skid, like rollercoasters on Coney Island, like opening his eyes in a new body that is the epitome of perfect human in every way conceivable. But it doesn't kill him.

His head gets thrown against the controls, his arm bent in an unnatural way, and his breath fogs up the glass when he breathes. It won't be long, now.

He's, well, happy isn't the right word. Proud isn't either. He supposes he is content. The disaster has been averted, the world saved, and Captain America is dead. But Steve Rogers is still here. He’s the one taking the suffering for Captain America, because Captain America only exists in people's heads. As an ideal, an icon, a way to connect with all the boys at the front. No one ever cared about the man underneath the mask, and Steve prefers it that way.

The little punk from Brooklyn is left picking up the pieces, left dealing with the results of his actions. The little guy from a big city, all on his own for maybe the first time in his entire life is the one dying. No back-up plan, no support, no Bucky.

So when the plane hits the water, and Steve’s last conversation with Peggy (she always saw him as _Steve_ and not the icon, which he is beyond grateful for) fades out, there are a few long seconds when Steve does nothing. He wonders how Peggy is coping with the abrupt end to their- last- conversation, but shuts down that thought because it will do him no good in this icy wasteland.

But then he unbuckles his seatbelt- which is funny because he can’t remember putting it on in the first place, and it seems kind of redundant now- and lies down on the metal floor a few paces from where the cube seared though the metal, pulling his shield over him like a safety blanket, like it is the only thing he wants beside him.

He knows he should be thinking of Peggy- the only girl who ever granted him any attention, and easily the best woman he ever knew (aside from his own mother)- her name the last thing on his lips like one of those movies Bucky insisted he didn’t like but always went to see, should probably be thinking of his duty, and honour, and sacrifice.

He knows this, but that’s what Captain America would think of. And the man currently facing death and ice is not he, and sometimes doubts he ever was, so instead thinks of cold nights in Brooklyn, and colder nights with the Commandoes, and one ever present theme in his life. In his last moments, Steve Rogers thinks of Bucky Barnes, and the ice practically freezes over from his sorrow.

Because Steve has been dead in all ways but physically since that train. Has been _dead_ since Bucky slipped from his grasp into the icy ravine and he was only a second and a twisted sense of duty from jumping after him.

If he’s being honest, and he figures since he's dying anyway there's no reason not to be, Steve should be dead. He should be dead a thousand times over, from being that skinny little asthmatic to that reckless impulsive so-called hero.

He should have died from asthma, and pneumonia, from endless ailments and diseases, from being beaten up countless times in every alley in Brooklyn, from the serum, from the Hydra Base, from every single mission after. But he didn’t. Steve Rogers lives against all odds, all words to the contrary.

And they call it a miracle, but right now it feels more like a curse.

Because Steven Grant Rogers, for all his false calmness and selflessness, well- he’s been dead for far longer than he will ever admit. He’s been empty since the moment Bucky fell from that train, since the moment his best friend got himself killed because of Steve.

And if you ask anyone, ask them how James Buchannan Barnes died, it is unlikely they will even recognise his name. The Howling Commandoes' missions and names were top-secret, classified, striken from the record- in the eyes of the people, they do not exist outside of comic books with nicknames and fictitious accounts of heroism.

The real stories of the men, of Steve's men, have been locked up tight and erased. Even Captain America's true name has been jealously guarded. The higher ups claimed it was to protect his loved ones, but the only loved one he had left marched right into battle with him. He never complained though. The other Commandoes had people they cared about outside of the war; he would not endanger any of them for something as fickle as celebrity.

James Barnes exists and is remembered as a hero only in the minds of his superiors, and the Commandoes, and Steve. And what no one will never tell you about his death, is that he lost his life because of Captain America. But Steve knows. Steve knew in that bombed out bunker with a glass of abandoned whiskey. Bucky's death was-is- _will always be_ his fault. 

Steve knew when he rescued Bucky that Sergeant Barnes was not fit for service, wasn't in the right place psychologically or emotionally to go back into the action. They’d been friends their entire lives, shared everything, knew every nook and crevice of each other's psyche.

Steve knew.

But no matter what the propaganda tells you, what the generals and the higher-ups feed to the ordinary people about the myth, the ideal, the very _legend_ that is Captain America, Steve Rogers is a selfish person.

He wanted, _God, he wanted_ , Bucky to be fine. He wanted to be able to fight alongside his best friend, to have one touch of normality in an otherwise crazy life. So even though he knew, even though he saw the _blankness_ in Bucky’s eyes, he let him join the fight again. And Bucky is dead because of it.

Steve has been dead on the inside for a lot longer than you would believe.

He doesn’t pretend to understand why he was chosen for the serum. Can’t even begin to imagine what Erskine could _possibly_ have seen in him of all people. Can't imagine what it was that made the good doctor pick him. He wasn't strong, or famous, or healthy, or any of the qualities people usually look for. All Steve had was Bucky, and now even that is gone.

But maybe the world needed Captain America. Maybe they needed that image of goodness, and justice, and **’doing the right thing’**.

But it cost him Bucky. He isn’t sure if it was worth it. In fact, he's fairly certain it wasn't.

The water, as it slowly rises from the floor, is cold. Of course, it would be. When the plane went down all there was to see was ice.

He flinches when the first wave washes over his ankles. It’s a natural human reaction. Involuntary. Not something he can turn off. It still feels as if it's weakness.

Steve has never liked the cold.

The second wave is only slightly more bearable. He’s numb, and it should feel bad. But it’s nice to be as numb on the outside as he feels on the inside.

Steve has always been on edge in his body, for as long as he can remember. He's been sick, and dying, and alive, and bruised, and bandaged, and forgotten, and _wrong_ for so long that it became the norm. When he was younger, unable to breathe without coughing, and older, when he would get thrown around for trying to be brave, and older still, when he suddenly found himself in a new body, and had to relearn everything. He crushed so many things in that first week, broke so many wooden shields, didn't, _couldn't_ comprehend his own strength.

But now it’s not wrong. Now it’s perfect. Now, when dying finally matches up with what's inside.

It’s not exactly a happy thought, but in the freezing, chilling, deadly plane Steve will take what he can get.

He’s been choking and drowning so long in his head, that this doesn’t even compare.

In the end, it isn’t the water, or drowning that kills him.

In the end, Captain America, commonly known as Steve Rogers, dies from the ice and the cold (and it’s simultaneously agony and relief, because he’s been cold so long it feels like coming home).

He dies the same way he did everything, jumping headfirst with no thought as to his own morality. He’s going to see Bucky, and his mother, going to heaven, or whatever the reality of life after death is when you have done all he has. How can he possibly be sad about that? There's nothing for him anymore.

And while killing himself would never have been an option, not for him, he is so unbelievably _relieved_ that he doesn't have to try and live after. After the war, and going home to an apartment in Brooklyn that could only ever half been filled. Steve wouldn't know what to do with himself if he survived, had only the vaguest plans of returning triumphant with Bucky at his side. But he knows, now, how very ridiculous a thought that was. The army would never have let him go.

Steve Rogers would have been held, contained, experimented on like they wanted to, in the smallest hope they could find the serum somewhere in his body. And now, when death looms so wonderfully on the horizon, Steve is ready to admit he couldn't have let them. Couldn't have trusted them not to abuse the serum, not to create an army of bullies.

He wonders idly what people will say about him in fifty years. If they'll even remember him. They will most likely call him a patriot if they do, America's golden boy, and maybe it's better that they believe that. Maybe it's better than everyone knowing that the only reason he ever jumped at the chance to join the war was a brunette named Bucky, and a wish to stop bullies.

So as Steve Rogers dies, as he feels the searching tendrils of ice grip his heart, he makes no move to try and prevent it.

After all, he made a promise to his Bucky; to the end of the line. He’s late, so maybe this is his stop.

He feels it as his heart slows down, a beat a minute, the ice encasing every vein in his body.

Steve is awake when the final thud of his heart pushes blood through his limbs. It doesn’t hurt, the pain long since frozen away. He feels at peace. Calm.

**Thump-thump.**

_Bucky._

There are worse ways to go than this, after all.


End file.
